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The CIA has managed to wreck most of the Moslem countries that have tried to become prosperous and independent.

The CIA and its friends have, reportedly, promoted the extremists in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Indonesia and so on; but in Malaysia, so far, the CIA has failed.

Malaysia, after independence, did not copy other Moslem countries such as Indonesia.

The USA put the military into power in Indonesia in 1965.

What did Malaysia do?

1. It put some controls on foreign investors, thus defying the IMF.

2. It developed a big middle class with domestic industry, public works and housing.

3. Malaysia pulled away economically from Indonesia and Bangladesh...

4. "Malaysia did something that London and Washington normally frown on:

"They utterly castrated the army as a political institution."

Malaysia is not entirely Moslem, but Islam is the official religion. According to the Population and Housing Census 2000 figures, approximately 60.4 percent of the population practiced Islam; 19.2 percent Buddhism; 9.1 percent Christianity; 6.3 percent Hinduism; and 2.6 percent traditional Chinese religions.

One reason for Malaysia's success is its former prime minister Dr Mahathir.

Mahathir knows who rules the world.

"Faced with furious criticism from around the world over Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's assertion that Jews rule the world, Malaysia apologised today for any misunderstanding and claimed that no offence was intended.

"Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar struggled to contain the damage wrought by his blunt-spoken boss, who told a summit of Islamic leaders yesterday that 'Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.'

Allegations of sodomy have been levelled against Anwar by a male aide.

"Anwar was in a vehicle approaching his home when the road was blocked by 10 police cars and a contingent of 20 balaclava-clad special forces, who took him to police headquarters." (Malaysian opposition leader Anwar arrested)

In September 2000, Malaysian politician Lim Kit Siang called on Prime Minister Mahathir to declare the outcome of three years of police investigations as to whether Anwar is a CIA agent and to state whether the United States is the country he meant in a Merdeka Day message as the country out to 'recolonize' Malaysia

Anwar was alleged to have received RM60 million from a Mr Nallakaruppan.

Former Bank Negara assistant governor Datuk Abdul Murad Khalid accused Anwar of having amassed a fortune of RM3 billion while in government through over 20 "Master Accounts".

Reference was made to the American-based organisation called Asia Pacific Policy Centre (APPC) headed by Douglas H. Paal, who was former Senior Director from Asian Affairs (1989 to 1993) of the National Security Council (NSC) of the United States.

MPs used parliamentary immunity to claim in Parliament that Anwar was a CIA agent on the basis that the APPC was a CIA outfit and Douglas Paal a CIA agent.

Oddly, Anwar had allegedly given money to APPC and Douglas Paal.

"The CIA... have complete records of Anwar's visits to gay bars in Washington D.C. and New York whenever he visited the USA." (cia)

In mid November 2007, "tens of thousands of Malaysians wore canary-yellow shirts to defy a government ban and march in Kuala Lumpur, calling for fairer elections. Riot police blocked routes into the city and fired water cannon to break up the rally...

"Mr Anwar is out of jail and again leading opposition to the entrenched elite he was once part of." Malaysia is of strategic importance.

Admiral Thomas Fargo, head of U.S forces in the Asia-Pacific in his testimony to U.S House Armed Services Committee had suggested that U.S troops might assist in patrolling the straits to deter terrorists who might target shipping in the Malacca Straits. This suggestion has been resented both by Malaysia and Indonesia.

"As an old cold war swagman, who carried tens of thousands of dollars to Soviet-bloc dissidents alongside much better respected academics, perhaps I can cast some light on what a Romanian friend called 'our clandestine period'. Too many higher up the food chain of People Power seem reticent about making full disclosure.

"Nowadays, we can google the names of foundations such as America's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a myriad surrogates funding Ukraine's Pora movement or 'independent' media. But unless you know the NED's James Woolsey was also head of the CIA 10 years ago, are you any wiser?"

People Power is usually about changing regimes to suit the American Military Industrial Complex.

As Almond states, "People Power is, it turns out, more about closing things than creating an open society. It shuts factories but, worse still, minds. Its advocates demand a free market in everything - except opinion."

Friday, January 30, 2009

In Turkey there has been a secret 'fascist' organisation called Ergenekon, which, reportedly, was originally set up by the CIA and its friends.

Ergenekon is reportedly behind most acts of terrorism in Turkey.

Reportedly, Mossad has influence within Ergenekon, and has tried to use it to topple the Turkish prime minister.

86 people, including retired generals, journalists and politicians, have been on trial. On 22 January 2009 a further 39 people (five of them serving army officers) were arrested. (Conspiracy theories )

The leaked diaries of a retired naval commander have revealed that some fellow officers (two of whom are now in jail for alleged links to Ergenekon) had plotted at least two coups against the present Turkish prime minister Mr Erdogan. (Conspiracy theories )

The military, and presumably Ergenekon, are said to be split into two factions. There are those who see the value of having links with neighbours Russia and Iran and those who oppose this. The latter faction want to keep close to Israel, the USA and Europe.

Fars news reported that Investigators uncovered evidence that a Jewish rabbi named Tuncay Guney, who worked for Mossad and fled to Canada in 2004, was a key figure behind attempts to overthrow the Turkish government.

Sabah daily reported that Guney infiltrated Ergenekon and another organization known as JITEM, an illegal intelligence unit linked with the police and suspected of hundreds of murders and kidnappings.

The businessmen allegedly have significant relations with individuals, political groups and cultural organizations affiliated with the Ergenekon group.

Turkish security forces have detained many members of the Ergenekon group, including retired army generals, politicians, popular lawyers and famous journalists. The individuals currently face trail on charges of plotting to overthrow Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan says to Peres: "You know how to kill very well. I know how you shot, how you killed the children... You have a prime minister who said that 'When I get in to Palestine on tanks, I feel myself a different kind of happiness...'"

Warren is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug.

An affidavit says the first victim states she was raped by Warren in Sept. 2007 after being invited to a party at Warren's residence by U.S. embassy employees.

She told a State Department investigator that after Warren prepared a mixed drink of cola and whiskey, she felt unwell.

When she woke up the next morning, "she was lying on a bed, completely nude, with no memory of how she had been undressed."

She said she realized "she recently had engaged in sexual intercourse, though she had no memory of having intercourse."

According to the affidavit, a second alleged victim told a similar story, saying Warren met her at the U.S. embassy and invited her for a "tour of his home" where she said he prepared an apple martini for her "out of her sight."

The second victim said she suddenly felt faint and went to the bathroom.

She could see and hear, but she could not move, the affidavit says.

She told investigators Warren "was attempting to remove her pants."

The bin Ladens like to keep close to the Bush family

The alleged victim said she remembers being in Warren's bed and asking him to stop, but that "Warren made a statement to the effect of 'nobody stays in my expensive sheets with clothes on.'"

She told investigators "as she slipped in and out of consciousness she had conscious images of Warren penetrating her vagina repeatedly with his penis."

Warren admitted there were photographs of the two women on his personal laptop.

U.S. officials found videos that appear to have been secretly recorded and show, they say, Warren engaged in sexual acts.

Officials say one of the alleged victims is seen on tape, in a "semi-conscious state."

As the station chief in Algiers, Warren may know quite a lot about the al Qaeda (al CIAda) group responsible for a wave of bombings in Algeria.

In the most serious incident, 48 people were killed in a bombing in Aug. 2008 in Algiers, blamed on the al Qaeda group.

The Algerian ambassador to the United Nations, Mourad Benmehid, said his government had not been notified by the U.S. of the rape allegations or the criminal investigation.

No charges have been filed.

There has been terrorism in Algeria for many decades.

According to an article entitled The Arc of Crisisvarious Nazis and spooks have been involved in Algeria.

Reportedly, what these Nazis and spooks believe in is a 'Strategy of Tension'.

Fascism thrives on terror.

From 1954 - 62, there was a war for independence in Algeria. Thousands died in acts of terror.

Reportedly, elements of the US and French governments supplied both sides in the conflict.

"Algeria's present al-Qaida offshoot is known as Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa. It grew out of the GSPC, the last extremist group left over from the bloody civil war, which joined Osama bin Laden's network in September 2006." - Al-Qaida claims responsibility for Algeria attacks

3. There is evidence from the past that the 'terrorists' worked for the French and Algerian security services.

The New Zealand Listener reported on the links between the security services and the 'Islamic terrorists' in Algeria.

'In recent years, firm evidence has begun to emerge from Algerian military sources and leading academics that the dreaded GIA has been – perhaps from the outset and certainly under Zitouni's bloody leadership – a dummy, or 'screen' organisation managed by French/Algerian counter-intelligence.' - http://www.listener.co.nz/default,1457.sm

4. Reportedly, the Algerian military, disguised as terrorists, were barbaric.

In February 2001, 'The Dirty War', by Habib Souaidia, a former Algerian army officer, was published.

It tells of the part played by the Algerian army in the killing of tens of thousands of Algerians.

Habib writes:"I have seen colleagues burn alive a 15-year-old child.

"I have seen soldiers disguising themselves as terrorists and massacring civilians.

One presumes Germany's Green Party has been taken over by the CIA-Mossad.

In 2007, Reinhard Bütikofer, who along with Claudia Roth is co-leader of the Greens, expressly defended Germany’s international military missions. The world would be 'far more uncertain' without the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan or in the Lebanon, he told the media. (Germany: Green Party attacks peace marches)

"Discussion of the very real doubts over the World Trade Center attacks was conspicuously absent from the US presidential race. "But America's international image will always be tainted as long as the uncertainty remains." - Professor Richard Falk, in The Journal, 9 November 2008.

The Journal was set up in 2007 by Scotland's leading young journalists. It is a 32-page tabloid, published fortnightly.

The Journal, on 9 November 2008, had an article by Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, entitled 9/11: More than meets the eye

Among the points made:

1. "Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings ... only wilful ignorance can maintain that the 9/11 narrative should be treated as a closed book, and that the public should move on to address the problems of the day... It is not paranoid ... to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide..."

2. "The 9/11 experience has been relied upon to wage bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to underwrite a disastrously conceived 'war on terror'...

3. A "dark cloud of doubt that lingers over the official 9/11 narrative..."

The issue was "not even discussed during the many months of presidential campaigning..."

The "explanation is a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full and honest investigation of 9/11...

4. "A few talk show hosts, investigative citizens, and publishers have kept a low flame of controversy burning sufficiently to sustain a large and growing grassroots constituency that shares the view that the truth about the 9/11 events is not yet known, or more radically, that the truth is known but being actively suppressed...

5. "The persisting inability to resolve this fundamental controversy about 9/11 subtly taints the legitimacy of the American government..."

"And as the miseries become legion: bankruptcies climb; old neighbourhoods become deserted; the hunger-driven discontent rises; law and order breaks down; the cops go berserk; and reality just generally goes to hell, the freshly minted believers will turn to their leader for solace.

"They'll light some more candles, put out a votive twinkie, and let the mantra fill their head banishing all distraction. A black man is president! I never thought I'd live to see the day! The American dream is true!" - your own genuine Obama shrine

"If the question is 'Why was Kennedy killed?' the answer will be, 'Because of the Vietnam war.' Thus the blame lies with the FBI, the CIA, the MIC, the Italian mafia and assorted Cubans. The answer is emphatically not, 'Because of Kennedy's attempt, by way of Executive Order 11110, to end the Rothschilds-owned Fed and its money-as-debt monopoly.' Heaven forfend!...

"Terry Semel and Arnon Milchen gave Oliver Stone $40,000,000. Happily Stone's film makes no mention of Executive Order 11110 and instead points the finger at everyone but those who had the most to lose. The film that mentions Executive Order 11110 doesn't exist and nor will it ever..." -JFK

Janet "Jan" Anne Royall, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, is a Labour politician and the current Leader of the UK House of Lords.Royall was a special adviser to Neil Kinnock, the Leader of the Labour Party, in the 1980s.

1."Every war Israel has waged since 1948 has had the same objective: expulsion of the native people and theft of more land."

2. "It may appear that the silence on Gaza is broken.

"The small cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents, and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea can be witnessed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC."

3. Pilger wonders why most of the Anglo-American intelligentsia has not told the truth about Palestine.

"They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, 'Israel's right to exist'...

"They know... that Palestine's right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and that the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel.

4. "They know, for example, that the infamous Plan D of 1947-48 resulted in the murderous depopulation of 369 Palestinian towns and villages by the Haganah (Israeli army) and that massacre upon massacre of Palestinian civilians in such places as Deir Yassin, al-Dawayima, Eilaboun, Jish, Ramle and Lydda are referred to in official records as 'ethnic cleansing'.

5. "Arriving at a scene of this carnage, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, was asked by a general, Yigal Allon: 'What shall we do with the Arabs?' Ben-Gurion... said, 'Expel them'.

"The order to expel an entire population ... was signed by Yitzhak Rabin..."

6. "Every subsequent 'war' Israel has waged has had the same objective: the expulsion of the native people and the theft of more and more land.

7.It is a myth that in 1967 the Arab states struck first against Israel.

The Israeli historian Pappé, on 2 January, wrote about a clear pattern of genocide being carried out by Israeli governments.

A Palestinian boy cries in the rubble of his family home after Israeli army bulldozers demolished it in the West Bank village of Deir Razeh Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2003. Three houses and two shacks were demolished in the village which is near a Jewish settlement. A spokeswoman for Israel's military government in the West Bank said that the buildings were built without Israeli permission. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

8. In Gaza there has been:

Enforced starvationThe denial of humanitarian aid The theft by the Israelis of life-giving resources such as fuel and waterThe denial of medicinesThe systematic destruction of infrastructureThe killing and maiming of the civilian population, 50 per cent of whom are children

All this falls "within the international standard of the Genocide Convention."

9. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement," asked Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and international law authority at Princeton University, "to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not."

Falk is a Jew.

10. Today, "it is a joint US-Israeli project.

"The F-16 jet fighters, the 250lb 'smart' GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza, having been approved by a Congress dominated by the Democratic Party, plus the annual $2.4bn in warmaking 'aid', give Washington de facto control."

F 16

11. "Outspoken about Russia’s war in Georgia and the terrorism in Mumbai, Obama has maintained a silence on Palestine that marks his approval, which is to be expected, given his obsequiousness to the Tel Aviv regime and its lobbyists during the presidential campaign and his appointment of Zionists as his secretary of state and principal Middle East advisers."

12.'Operation Justified Vengeance' ... was launched by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 when, with George W Bush's approval, he used F-16s against Palestinian towns and villages for the first time.

13. "In that same year, the authoritative Jane's Foreign Report disclosed that the Blair government had given Israel the 'green light' to attack the West Bank after it was shown Israel's secret designs for a bloodbath...

14. "However, the Israeli plan, reported Jane's, needed the 'trigger' of a suicide bombing which would cause 'numerous deaths and injuries (because) the revenge factor is crucial'. This would 'motivate Israeli soldiers to demolish the Palestinians'.

"What alarmed Sharon and the author of the plan, General Shaul Mofaz, then Israeli chief of staff, was a secret agreement between Yasser Arafat and Hamas to ban suicide attacks.

"On 23 November 2001 Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud and got their 'trigger': the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing."

15. "Something uncannily similar happened on 4 November last year (2008) when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people.

"Once again, they got their propaganda 'trigger': a ceasefire sustained by the Hamas government - which had imprisoned its violators - was shattered as a result of the Israeli attacks, and home-made rockets were fired into what used to be called Palestine before its Arab occupants were 'cleansed'.

"On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel's charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Dagan was born in Russia.

16. "Behind this sordid game is the 'Dagan Plan', named after General Meir Dagan, who served with Sharon during his bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

"Now head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation, Dagan is the author of a 'solution' that has brought about the imprisonment of Palestinians behind a ghetto wall snaking across the West Bank and in Gaza, now effectively a concentration camp..."

Dagan's hasbara (propaganda) campaign says "Hamas is a terrorist organisation devoted to Israel's destruction and is to 'blame' for the massacres and siege of its own people over two generations, since long before its creation."

17. Hamas is a democratically elected government.

"Hamas is never described as a government... "Neither is its proposal of a ten-year truce reported as a historic recognition of the 'reality' of Israel and support for a two-state solution with just one condition: that the Israelis obey international law and end their illegal occupation beyond the 1967 borders.

"As every annual vote in the UN General Assembly demonstrates, most states agree."

18. "The Dagan Plan foresees what Sharon called a '1948-style solution':

The destruction of all Palestinian leadership and authorityFollowed by mass expulsions into smaller and smaller 'cantonments' And perhaps, finally, into Jordan.

19. Dr Dahlia Wasfi, an American writer, has a Jewish mother. She sees what is being done to the Palestinians as being like what the Nazis did to their victims.

She says: "What I'm referring to is the holocaust we are all witnessing and responsible for in Gaza today and in Palestine over the past 60 years . . . Since Arabs are Semites, US-Israeli policy doesn't get more anti-Semitic than this."

20. According to John Pilger: "What happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants war criminals impunity and immunity through our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or it gives us the power to speak out."

~~

Is there a Kosher conspiracy?

Peter Wilby is no longer editor of the UK New Statesman. Why? Is it because he criticised Israel?

"As for the Jewish claim to biblical lands, it makes no more sense to the Arab mind than an Italian claim to establish a Roman state along the length of the A5 would to the British. Indeed, it never made much sense to European minds either, given that they would happily have settled for a Jewish homeland in Uganda or Siberia, if they had thought it practicable."

One New Statesman cover showed the star of David at the heart of the Union Jack, and had the title, 'Kosher Conspiracy.'

The Spectator magazine had an article suggesting that 9 11 was an inside-job.

The Spectator's editor Boris Johnson found his private life exposed. He was sacked as the Conservative party's vice chairman and arts spokesman.

The Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan criticised the war in Iraq. He was sacked.

The BBC sacked journalist Andrew Gilligan after he suggested that a government document on Iraq had been 'sexed up'.

AL ARAB: Mr. President, you are sometimes described as being a shitty Zionist.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you so much.

AL ARAB: You say you want peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

PRESIDENT OBOMBER: I'm absolutely confident that the United States, working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab states in the region, can get these Palestinians removed from Palestine.

Our long term plan is for Israel to takeover most of Syria, all of Lebanon, half of Iraq, all of Jordan, and parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The only peace Israel wants is: a “piece” of Jordan; a “piece” of Syria; a “piece” of Lebanon; a “piece” of Egypt; a “piece” of Iraq; a “piece” of Saudi Arabia. LOL.

AL ARAB: Absolutely.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what's happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We need Afghanistan for its heroin, as the profits from heroin get invested on Wall Street.

And, we are happy to ally with Iran, while we start to destroy Pakistan or Lebanon or Syria.

On the eve of his Senate confirmation hearing (Jan. 22, 2009), new information has emerged showing that Adm. Dennis Blair - President Obama's nominee for US Director of National Intelligence - lied about his knowledge of a terrorist massacre that occured before a pivotal meeting in which Blair offered support and US aid to the commander of the massacre forces.

The massacre took place at the Liquica Catholic church in Indonesian-occupied East Timor two days before Blair met face-to-face with the Indonesian armed forces commander, Gen. Wiranto

(the massacre occurred on April 6, 1999; Blair and Wiranto met April 8).

A classified US cable shows that rather than telling Wiranto to stop the killing, Blair invited Wiranto to be his guest in Hawaii, offered him new US military aid, and told the Indonesian general that he was "working hard" on his behalf, lobbying the US government to restore US military training aid for Indonesia.

Wiranto's militias, who murdered Christians. At least one third of the population of East Timor died after Kissinger and Ford, in 1975, gave Suharto their approval for an Indonesian invasion. The USA continued to support Indonesia's military at the time of the 1999 referendum on independence.

Since I disclosed the contents of that Blair-Wiranto meeting in a report filed in 1999 (see Allan Nairn, "US Complicity in Timor," The Nation, Sept. 27, 1999, reprinted in the Jan. 6 '09 News and Comment posting referenced above), Blair has defended himself by claiming that he went into the meeting with Wiranto not yet knowing of the Liquica massacre.

The Associated Press reported this month, in a January 9 dispatch: "Blair has said he only learned of the massacre a few days after the meeting."

(Pamela Hess, "Obama to finalize national security team Friday," Associated Press, Friday Jan. 9, 2009, 4:22 am ET; Blair made the same claim to the Washington Post: Dana Priest, "Standing Up to State and Congress," September 30, 2000).

East Timor. The USA reportedly trained the bad guys.

But now, contemporaneous records have emerged - from the US Embassy in Jakarta, and from the Catholic Church - showing that the massacre was publicly described by Timor's Bishop one day before the Blair-Wiranto meeting, and that while Blair was in Jakarta preparing for the meeting, US officials who were there with him were discussing the massacre in graphic detail.

One written message from a US official even noted: "In the face of the scores of horrible slash wounds at Liquica, there are no surgeons to treat them."

The US official was referring to the fact that, as had been disclosed at the Timor Bishop's April 7 press conference, dozens of refugees sheltering in the church had been hacked to death with machetes, but as Blair and Wiranto prepared to meet, some of those slashed were still alive.

Another Jakarta dispatch by senior US personnel written prior to the Blair-Wiranto sitdown refers explicitly to Blair's presence, to his impending meeting with Wiranto, and, crucially, to the detail and rough death toll of the already-known Liquica massacre.

"[W]e have the CINCPAC here today (Command[e]r in Chief of the Pacific]," the message said, referring to Blair by title; and it stated, in regard to what Wiranto's men had done: "Now we may have 40 people - who were cowering in a church - dead."

Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, had made the key facts of the massacre clear in his April 7, 1999 press conference, which took place the day before the Blair-Wiranto meeting.

Belo was accompanied by Father Rafael Dos Santos, the Liquica pastor who survived the massacre. Their authoritative accounts received same-day coverage in the Western and local press and were also recounted in church bulletins and in US intelligence and diplomatic traffic.

For Blair to claim that he did not know of these materials or his US colleagues' discussions taking place all around him is to strain credulity to the breaking point, especially since he's being nominated as intelligence chief, and since his meeting with Wiranto was cleared by Washington precisely to address the Timor crisis.

Bishop Belo and Father Dos Santos said the following in their publicly broadcast remarks. This account is excerpted from "Timorese Bishop says more than 25 killed in church massacre," DILI, East Timor, April 7 [1999], (AFP):

"Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo accused Indonesian-backed militia on Wednesday [April 7] of massacring more than 25 people in East Timor outside a church. "Belo was speaking at a press conference with Father Rafael Dos Santos who described how refugees sheltering in his church and home at Liquisa [an alternate spelling of Liquica], 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the Timorese capital Dili, were hacked down with machetes. "Dos Santos said Indonesian mobile brigade police stood behind the militia during the attack, and fired into the air. "When the attack began 'people ran for cover wherever they could,' he said. Some ran into his house and some into the church before being forced out when troops fired teargas into the buildings. 'When they came out of the church, their eyes streaming, they were mown down, hacked to death with machetes, by the Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron militia),' he said ...

"Belo travelled to Liquisa earlier Wednesday to visit the site of the attack with Indonesia's East Timor military commander Colonel Tono Suratman. 'I have a paper from the military commander that there were 25 bodies inside the priest's house,' he said, 'but according to other witnesses outside around the church there were other bodies. I don't know exactly how many.' "Belo had been quoted by the Portugese news agency Lusa on Tuesday [April 6] as saying he had first been informed by the Indonesian military of the deaths of 40 people in the church and five in the priest's house... 'Firstly I am sad, for what happened in Liquisa ... secondly I am ashamed to be a citizen of the (Indonesian) republic. It has taken us back to the middle ages,' Belo said."

We shall now see where the Senate takes us.

(For another contemporaneous -- April 7, pre - Blair/Wiranto meeting -- public report of the massacre see the report of Yayasan HAK, the leading independent East Timorese human rights group, summarized at http://etan.org/et99/april/3-10/6yayasan.htm).

Readers can reach the US Senate Intelligence Committee, which is holding today's confirmation hearing on Blair, through the US Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Via the switchboard they can also reach the offices of Senators on the committee. Key members include the committee chair, Sen. Diane Feinstein, the ranking Republican, Sen. Kit Bond, Sen. Ron Wyden, who has said he will question Blair about Timor, Sen. Russ Feingold, a longtime critic of US aid to the Indonesian military, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who has also criticized the US policy.